Click the Accessibility bar below for details on materials that can be substituted to make this activity easier for children with a range of abilities.

Smocks to protect children's clothing

Directions

1. Provide one coffee filter and one eye dropper for each child participating. Place a few small dishes containing food colouring on the table.

2. Demonstrate to the children how to squeeze the bulb of the eye dropper and then release the pressure on it so that the dropper fills up with food colouring. Explain that squeezing the bulb again helps to squirt the food colouring onto the coffee filter.

3. As the children squirt food colouring onto the coffee filter, comment on the different colours, and the new ones that get created as the original colours mix together.

4. Allow the filters to dry and then these can be displayed.

5. You are now ready to begin this activity!

The accessibility icon suggests tips, such as materials or tasks, which will make an activity easier for children with a range of abilities to practice skills that support social, emotional, gross motor, fine motor and intellectual developmental milestones.

Click Here For Accessibility Tips

Overview

It is challenging for some children to hold objects and place them in a specific location. These tips help your child develop their ability to hold objects and build their eye/hand coordination (how their hands and eyes work together).

Accessible Materials

Turkey baster

Large sturdy bowls

Rubber place mat

Tips

Use wider tools for your child to squeeze (i.e. turkey baster) to engage them during the actviity

Guide your child's hands to squeeze the tool (i.e. the turkey baster)

Use large bowls with a rubber place mat underneath to keep materials in place

Nurture, Explore & Share

If you use a tools (i.e. turkey baster) with a thicker handle for your child

Your child will have a better grip to support hand strength

Nurture, Explore & Share

If you use a large bowl for your child to use

Your child will develop the ability for their hands and eyes to work together (eye/hand coordination)

Share

Learn the names of colours and discover what happens when two primary colours are combined

Enriching Learning Through the Everyday Moments

Provide materials that encourage children to practice using the fine motor skills necessary for grasping small things (i.e. tongs for picking up cotton balls, scissors for cutting play dough snakes).

Activities such as sorting buttons or dried beans enable children to practice grasping small objects and releasing them.

Provide eye droppers, plastic turkey basters and squeezable shampoo or dish soap bottles to water play experiences. This will encourage children to strengthen their fine motor skills while experimenting with the materials.

Recommended Reading

The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle and A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni.